Berlin Field Getting New Scoreboard

BERLIN — — A new scoreboard will go up at Zipadelli Field before the start of baseball this spring.

The field was named in 1999 in honor of the late police Officer John C. "Zip" Zipadelli.

Donations from several groups, including $8,500 from the town police union, will be used to buy the new scoreboard.

On Thursday, Mayor Adam Salina said the town will install it. The aging scoreboard in the field in Sage Park will be moved across town to Percival Park to replace a scoreboard there damaged in 2011 by Tropical Storm Irene, he said.

"We really appreciate the kindness and generosity of the donors," Salina said, two days after he led the town council in approving the purchase and installation of the new scoreboard..

Zipadelli, a sergeant when he died of cancer in 1974 at age 60, joined the department in 1945 and was the force's most senior officer when he died. He was a charter member of the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department when it was formed in 1939.

A 1999 story in The Courant about the naming of the field noted that Zipadelli raised thousands of dollars for the Jimmy Fund, a charity that has raised money since 1948 to support the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The Boston Red Sox baseball team has been a supporter of the fund for 60 years.

The 1999 article said Zipadelli organized fund- raising baseball games, put out collection cans on store counters, passed out the cans at local movie theaters and at one point, raised more money for the charity than anyone else in Connecticut.